The World Literature Blog
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Why for me Derrida the writer is under a sign of erasure
You have to read his article on Benoist to get it.
Monday, November 14, 2005
The essay's last part/ Title : A tesseract on the democratization of the teaching of English language and literature in India
The realist position.
I teach a syllabus with prescribed textbooks; and a written exam the students have to take, at the end of the year, by which their "performance" will be assessed. At the parent-teacher conferences and some of the staff meetings and through feedback I have received from some of the more voluble students I have come to realise that for most parents, for the majority of (Western/national) universities and for ninety-nine percent of the students what "really" matters is grades. There is also a "vast" syllabus to "finish off" with only limited time to do it in. Added to these issues is the cumbersome paperwork connected to the Western idea of documentation which has its plus and minus points, if looked at objectively. These are the constraints that I work in. I can also call them factors securing/offering security to the students, teachers, parents and school managements. Structure is, after all, necessary. However, the studies done on this kind of a partially closed system leads to conclusions like the ones drawn by Anita Rampal , the remedies suggested always including the same objective of freeing children from the very strictures that it seems impossible to get rid of. As for the children themselves, while the constraints irk them they also impart a certain sense of safety to them because of their strongly felt need for a "clear" structure.Can constructivism provide the balance? One would have to give a double-edged answer, i.e; yes and no. Two schools of thought - one, that believes in subverting the system gradually and the other that thinks of just getting rid of it lock, stock and barrel and ushering in the new in a revolutionay coup d'etat are both theories that yield mixed results in actual application. Facilitators who have moved through the three positions - I mean, including the traditionalist one (i.e; keep things as they are and make them function to peak levels in efficiency-) will understand what the present writer means. Another school opines "give the students what they want".
The absence of a cut and dried solution is our strength. As long as reflection and review goes on of the entire pedagogical process and things are in a flux there will be a vibrancy to our attempts to better quality education . It will ensure that we see ourselves as learners first and foremost rather than as all-knowing eduactors , keeping us on our toes.
Solutions that raise more questions than answers.
When we think of major educators and thinkers India has had in the recent past like Gandhi with his metaphor of the gardener and the plant, Nehru, B.R. Ambedkar, Rabindranath Tagore and J. Krishnamurti and of the democratization of education , an issue that was felt to be of the utmost importance by all the above mentioned giants - and we also think of the topic at the personalised level of one's own professional practice ; it seems obvious that one has to work on two fronts. One front has to be broad, group activity that would include revamping the curriculum and the syllabus including the textbooks.
The other front would be narrow , considering how to apply these things at the miniscule levels of giving attention to individual students and the groups that we call a 'class' at present.
As far as English - an international link language that is also the language of technology and one of the nation's own languages- is concerned its democratization in the overall curriculum has to include ceratin new drives in framing the curriculum. I shall concern myself more with the syllabus.
Suggestions could be listed thus: a) the students should be consulted as to what they think their needs are and then the drafts can go into the written form.
b) The syllabus must offer the freedom to the teacher to teach in more than one language if it fetches results. This applies especially to ESL . This would be an option and not a must.
c) The rewriting of textbooks that such a directive would result in must be rigorously tested for quality and their abilty to interest ALL the learners.
d) Where literature is concerned the choice of texts must include an international work of repute - in translation -, a work from Britain in English, a work from Indian literature and a local/regioanl work - both again in translation, if need be.)
e) Another option would be choosing short pieces making the coursework light on the students but taking into consideration different genres and forms and including different ideologies and cultures. A syllabus like this would teach a short story, an essay , a drama - preferably, a short one-act play, a novel(a novellette would do just as well) , an essay (personal or dealing with critical theory, theory or criticism) to be taught over a period of two years. The learning objectives would be limited to thinking, speaking, presenting, listening, writing and reading by whichiI mean literary and semantic appreciation.
f.Asessment would be entirely revamped. While grades and marks would need to be retained for the sake of the "system" the emphasis would be on thinking skills, creativity, innovativeness, effort , presenting, listening and writing skills collectively. Critical analysis would be as important as producing creative output with both being wighted equally.
g. The output of another of the language-oriented papers beisdes teaching language and literature w/ should be aimed towards vocational use somewhere down the line so that teaching skills like writing CV's etc, i.e; introducing subjects like fucntional, communicative English would be a plus. This would take skills like translation, medical,legal and other kinds of transcription, technical writing,business English, creative writing, televisual presentation, news readers, copy writing, script writing, reporting for journalisms -radio,TV, film, print,web - editing, making publisher's choices, criticism, reviewing, research and scholarship and other job oriented vectors of language use into consideration
This list could go on but space doesn't permit it.
Practical application.
The real challenge for the facilitator is in the "class". It is possible to come to an assessment of a student which is accurate and easy to help him/her in such a way that s/he doesn't slip back
but true democratization would include the satisfying result that the student/each student actually improves in his skills over the period of time that he/she works with you. This is the real challenge. He should not go away feeling that he was taught well but , more important, there should be a clear difference brought about in his ability to learn and do. His potential to be a 'mover' must be tapped and maximised. This is an area fraught with possibilities and I feel the answer lies in allowing contemporaneity - i.e. working with what the student knows and is interested in, and the latest advances of technology adapted inovatively to meet the present situation to mesh with the latest teaching techniques is the way forward. This, along with the radicalization that could be brought in by ensuring greater student participation in "all " the activities the teacher considers his forte at present, is a possible solution.
Concretely speaking, what this means is discussing with students the choice of textbooks, self-assessment and peer group evaluations, sharing of lesson objectives and everything else with students who would be interested in knowing of the documentation process of the teacher, self-and group-teaching by the students and adapting the possibilities of technology in an innovative way to situational and contemporaneous needs of learning. The tech must be simple, low cost and environment friendly. Alternates should be kept readily be available, in case of one method not working, in the same way the teacher goes into a class with two or three options at least.
Examples: In my class while teaching poetry I took some students over to the computer lab and showed them a few hypertext poems and hypertext fictions and this set them thinking about the difference in the forms of poetry and fiction when it is 'written' down and 'programmed' in. They became aware, to some extent, of concepts like interactivity. hyperlinks and lexias/emes and consequently of the complicated changes occurring historically in the two above mentioned forms without my having to bring in the academic jargon connected to such modifications which might have only ended up confusing them in the beginning.
In ESL at least immersion and the dual language format has to be employed simultaneously and the stress has to be on simple performance related objectives rather than mastery . This is common sense and not very novel but a few things can also be taken from the antiquated systems wherever essential.
I am unable to say everything that has to be said on all these topics due to the word limit and all that has been said has not been comprehensive .But all of it can definitely be used as pointers to start meaningful discussions in the hope that they will lead to reification of strategies of learning and facilitation, for steady improvement to occur .
The great king and patron of arts of Travancore, Swathi Thirunal, was made to say by the script- writer, in a film about him, that we should start English schools in India because " We will conquer the language that is conquering the world." The sentence gripped my imagination . Fifty eight years after independance I can say that we Indians /I / many of our students have indeed conquered the language that is still conquering the world, even to the extent that we are producing writers in it that rival the best anywhere. But the price many of us have paid is less facility in our own languages. The democratization of English and the teaching of literature in this beautiful language has therefore to concentrate primarily on the objectives of ensuring that Englishes (SMS english, chat English, English in Kerala, English theory jargon) are encouraged as much as British English and that this is not done at the cost of other languages or of quality. Literary appreciation has to deal objectively with real-life students and actual situations in a graphic and interesting way so that true democratization takes place whereby all the students are enthused to love languages and its infinite possibilies and go away considering the learning of Language to be a " poetic experience"that ignites their love for the logos and the mythos in a teleological way, as in the parable of the sower and the seed so that the memory of it will be one of progressive instruction and mastery gained by delight as Horace wanted it to be and as Edenic as life's first learning experiences were and are. The only war we faciltators need to constantly wage, therefore, is one whereby there is a ceaseless effort to keep closing the gap between our notion of perfection and our consistently and constantly evolving practice.
By the way I removed the journalspace section so please don't click on it.
Tha's it folks. Now to edit and make it 2000 words. Wishing you all luck.
I teach a syllabus with prescribed textbooks; and a written exam the students have to take, at the end of the year, by which their "performance" will be assessed. At the parent-teacher conferences and some of the staff meetings and through feedback I have received from some of the more voluble students I have come to realise that for most parents, for the majority of (Western/national) universities and for ninety-nine percent of the students what "really" matters is grades. There is also a "vast" syllabus to "finish off" with only limited time to do it in. Added to these issues is the cumbersome paperwork connected to the Western idea of documentation which has its plus and minus points, if looked at objectively. These are the constraints that I work in. I can also call them factors securing/offering security to the students, teachers, parents and school managements. Structure is, after all, necessary. However, the studies done on this kind of a partially closed system leads to conclusions like the ones drawn by Anita Rampal , the remedies suggested always including the same objective of freeing children from the very strictures that it seems impossible to get rid of. As for the children themselves, while the constraints irk them they also impart a certain sense of safety to them because of their strongly felt need for a "clear" structure.Can constructivism provide the balance? One would have to give a double-edged answer, i.e; yes and no. Two schools of thought - one, that believes in subverting the system gradually and the other that thinks of just getting rid of it lock, stock and barrel and ushering in the new in a revolutionay coup d'etat are both theories that yield mixed results in actual application. Facilitators who have moved through the three positions - I mean, including the traditionalist one (i.e; keep things as they are and make them function to peak levels in efficiency-) will understand what the present writer means. Another school opines "give the students what they want".
The absence of a cut and dried solution is our strength. As long as reflection and review goes on of the entire pedagogical process and things are in a flux there will be a vibrancy to our attempts to better quality education . It will ensure that we see ourselves as learners first and foremost rather than as all-knowing eduactors , keeping us on our toes.
Solutions that raise more questions than answers.
When we think of major educators and thinkers India has had in the recent past like Gandhi with his metaphor of the gardener and the plant, Nehru, B.R. Ambedkar, Rabindranath Tagore and J. Krishnamurti and of the democratization of education , an issue that was felt to be of the utmost importance by all the above mentioned giants - and we also think of the topic at the personalised level of one's own professional practice ; it seems obvious that one has to work on two fronts. One front has to be broad, group activity that would include revamping the curriculum and the syllabus including the textbooks.
The other front would be narrow , considering how to apply these things at the miniscule levels of giving attention to individual students and the groups that we call a 'class' at present.
As far as English - an international link language that is also the language of technology and one of the nation's own languages- is concerned its democratization in the overall curriculum has to include ceratin new drives in framing the curriculum. I shall concern myself more with the syllabus.
Suggestions could be listed thus: a) the students should be consulted as to what they think their needs are and then the drafts can go into the written form.
b) The syllabus must offer the freedom to the teacher to teach in more than one language if it fetches results. This applies especially to ESL . This would be an option and not a must.
c) The rewriting of textbooks that such a directive would result in must be rigorously tested for quality and their abilty to interest ALL the learners.
d) Where literature is concerned the choice of texts must include an international work of repute - in translation -, a work from Britain in English, a work from Indian literature and a local/regioanl work - both again in translation, if need be.)
e) Another option would be choosing short pieces making the coursework light on the students but taking into consideration different genres and forms and including different ideologies and cultures. A syllabus like this would teach a short story, an essay , a drama - preferably, a short one-act play, a novel(a novellette would do just as well) , an essay (personal or dealing with critical theory, theory or criticism) to be taught over a period of two years. The learning objectives would be limited to thinking, speaking, presenting, listening, writing and reading by whichiI mean literary and semantic appreciation.
f.Asessment would be entirely revamped. While grades and marks would need to be retained for the sake of the "system" the emphasis would be on thinking skills, creativity, innovativeness, effort , presenting, listening and writing skills collectively. Critical analysis would be as important as producing creative output with both being wighted equally.
g. The output of another of the language-oriented papers beisdes teaching language and literature w/ should be aimed towards vocational use somewhere down the line so that teaching skills like writing CV's etc, i.e; introducing subjects like fucntional, communicative English would be a plus. This would take skills like translation, medical,legal and other kinds of transcription, technical writing,business English, creative writing, televisual presentation, news readers, copy writing, script writing, reporting for journalisms -radio,TV, film, print,web - editing, making publisher's choices, criticism, reviewing, research and scholarship and other job oriented vectors of language use into consideration
This list could go on but space doesn't permit it.
Practical application.
The real challenge for the facilitator is in the "class". It is possible to come to an assessment of a student which is accurate and easy to help him/her in such a way that s/he doesn't slip back
but true democratization would include the satisfying result that the student/each student actually improves in his skills over the period of time that he/she works with you. This is the real challenge. He should not go away feeling that he was taught well but , more important, there should be a clear difference brought about in his ability to learn and do. His potential to be a 'mover' must be tapped and maximised. This is an area fraught with possibilities and I feel the answer lies in allowing contemporaneity - i.e. working with what the student knows and is interested in, and the latest advances of technology adapted inovatively to meet the present situation to mesh with the latest teaching techniques is the way forward. This, along with the radicalization that could be brought in by ensuring greater student participation in "all " the activities the teacher considers his forte at present, is a possible solution.
Concretely speaking, what this means is discussing with students the choice of textbooks, self-assessment and peer group evaluations, sharing of lesson objectives and everything else with students who would be interested in knowing of the documentation process of the teacher, self-and group-teaching by the students and adapting the possibilities of technology in an innovative way to situational and contemporaneous needs of learning. The tech must be simple, low cost and environment friendly. Alternates should be kept readily be available, in case of one method not working, in the same way the teacher goes into a class with two or three options at least.
Examples: In my class while teaching poetry I took some students over to the computer lab and showed them a few hypertext poems and hypertext fictions and this set them thinking about the difference in the forms of poetry and fiction when it is 'written' down and 'programmed' in. They became aware, to some extent, of concepts like interactivity. hyperlinks and lexias/emes and consequently of the complicated changes occurring historically in the two above mentioned forms without my having to bring in the academic jargon connected to such modifications which might have only ended up confusing them in the beginning.
In ESL at least immersion and the dual language format has to be employed simultaneously and the stress has to be on simple performance related objectives rather than mastery . This is common sense and not very novel but a few things can also be taken from the antiquated systems wherever essential.
I am unable to say everything that has to be said on all these topics due to the word limit and all that has been said has not been comprehensive .But all of it can definitely be used as pointers to start meaningful discussions in the hope that they will lead to reification of strategies of learning and facilitation, for steady improvement to occur .
The great king and patron of arts of Travancore, Swathi Thirunal, was made to say by the script- writer, in a film about him, that we should start English schools in India because " We will conquer the language that is conquering the world." The sentence gripped my imagination . Fifty eight years after independance I can say that we Indians /I / many of our students have indeed conquered the language that is still conquering the world, even to the extent that we are producing writers in it that rival the best anywhere. But the price many of us have paid is less facility in our own languages. The democratization of English and the teaching of literature in this beautiful language has therefore to concentrate primarily on the objectives of ensuring that Englishes (SMS english, chat English, English in Kerala, English theory jargon) are encouraged as much as British English and that this is not done at the cost of other languages or of quality. Literary appreciation has to deal objectively with real-life students and actual situations in a graphic and interesting way so that true democratization takes place whereby all the students are enthused to love languages and its infinite possibilies and go away considering the learning of Language to be a " poetic experience"that ignites their love for the logos and the mythos in a teleological way, as in the parable of the sower and the seed so that the memory of it will be one of progressive instruction and mastery gained by delight as Horace wanted it to be and as Edenic as life's first learning experiences were and are. The only war we faciltators need to constantly wage, therefore, is one whereby there is a ceaseless effort to keep closing the gap between our notion of perfection and our consistently and constantly evolving practice.
By the way I removed the journalspace section so please don't click on it.
Tha's it folks. Now to edit and make it 2000 words. Wishing you all luck.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Friday, November 04, 2005
What would be a good title for this essay?
I'm unable to copy and post from MSWord doc to here. Damn. Anybody know the way to do it, please tell me.
I've already gone way past 2000 words, so this will need a hatchet.
Meanwhile, if you want to read my "work in progress" go here
http://papermoon.journalspace.com
If you can't go in just create a blog for yourself on journalspace; it's free, and look for the "papermoon" blog
I've already gone way past 2000 words, so this will need a hatchet.
Meanwhile, if you want to read my "work in progress" go here
http://papermoon.journalspace.com
If you can't go in just create a blog for yourself on journalspace; it's free, and look for the "papermoon" blog
Thursday, November 03, 2005
The Essay - 3
What should concern prospective professional educators/teachers/ facilitators/ mediators/ gurus(experts/masters) and education theorists is, however, not just the definitions and the points of origin or the goals and aims of education, but the process itself. It is the process that needs to be monitored because it is the part of education that has had least light cast upon it from the detached and metacognitive perspective of thinkers and practitioners who critique and analyse what happens in education. They pay attention to precedents and antecedents, and study whether the new systems put in place of the old have met their objectives and have measurable outcomes that can be quantified as to whether they are more effective than what came before. While this might seem 'simplistic' generalization to some, and indeed it no doubt is if looked at from a positivist point of view, it is written with this end in mind that , to put it 'simply', no amount of attention paid to the process of education can be too little if education is to constantly improve.
The Essay (continued)
The simplest meanings of the words 'science' and 'education' , even after taking into consideration their etymological roots, are as follows:
Science: System of knowledge gained by systematic research and organized into general laws ; specific field of systematic knowledge; skill; proficiency
Education: Learning, instruction, imparting of knowledge, upbringing.
http://www.english-test.net/toeic/vocabulary/meanings/249/toeic-words.php#phpeducation
If science is basically - about - skill and proficiency all of us ought to be or are scientists to some extent. In the same way, all of us are 'partial' educators.
Science: System of knowledge gained by systematic research and organized into general laws ; specific field of systematic knowledge; skill; proficiency
Education: Learning, instruction, imparting of knowledge, upbringing.
http://www.english-test.net/toeic/vocabulary/meanings/249/toeic-words.php#phpeducation
If science is basically - about - skill and proficiency all of us ought to be or are scientists to some extent. In the same way, all of us are 'partial' educators.
Stroke of luck and continuing frustration
Today I got into our discussion board and read some of the posts before I began getting the usual response of gateway error, server response unauthenticated etc. I am a bit frustrated because I'm unable to post either on the discussion board or on the ppseblog although I tried following Tara's directions. Guess tech has its flip side.
I want to play this by the rules of the game so I am going to stick to the 2000 word limit.
My essay starts like this.
First paragraph.
Horace's dictum that poetry should delight and instruct is where this tesseract would like to start drawing its lines from. If the word 'poetry' is replaced by the word' education', nothing would be lost. Education has to delight and instruction that comes through delight stays with the instructor and the instructed. Delight is one of the root meanings of the word Eden. In the evenings, an unlikely time for 'classes' to be held , the Maker (Vates/Poet) "came down" to have fellowship with mankind in the garden, an unlikely place for 'teaching', and asked him/her/them to give names to all the animals and spent instructive hours that were a delight/Paradise to the participants. Life can be paradise when it is a constant process of education where delight and instruction revolve around each other and are one in a constant harmony that forms a circle whereby instruction is passed on through delight and the delight its mastery gives leads to the desire for more instruction, till gradually the mediator of instruction recedes into the background so that the receptacle can become the new mediator in his/her turn. The father gives way to the son, the mother makes way for the daughter and the teacher gives pride of place to the student . The whole family of mankind yields to the next generation.
I want to play this by the rules of the game so I am going to stick to the 2000 word limit.
My essay starts like this.
First paragraph.
Horace's dictum that poetry should delight and instruct is where this tesseract would like to start drawing its lines from. If the word 'poetry' is replaced by the word' education', nothing would be lost. Education has to delight and instruction that comes through delight stays with the instructor and the instructed. Delight is one of the root meanings of the word Eden. In the evenings, an unlikely time for 'classes' to be held , the Maker (Vates/Poet) "came down" to have fellowship with mankind in the garden, an unlikely place for 'teaching', and asked him/her/them to give names to all the animals and spent instructive hours that were a delight/Paradise to the participants. Life can be paradise when it is a constant process of education where delight and instruction revolve around each other and are one in a constant harmony that forms a circle whereby instruction is passed on through delight and the delight its mastery gives leads to the desire for more instruction, till gradually the mediator of instruction recedes into the background so that the receptacle can become the new mediator in his/her turn. The father gives way to the son, the mother makes way for the daughter and the teacher gives pride of place to the student . The whole family of mankind yields to the next generation.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Just like starting over....
DoD, ABA workshop, PTC's, IGCSE Seminar ...... the rains
Now I hope to finally start on my first draft. Skeleton.
Define education briefly.
Then go onto teaching,facilitating...
Banking theory
Deschooling society
Unstructured learning
Structured learning of various kinds
Acontextual learning
Multiple intelligences and cognitive psychology
When does learning really happen
Constructivism - Anita Rampal's definition
Teaching in india
Teaching in our school, i.e. my teaching practice and the concept of professionalism
The idea that there were alternate schools of thought that were allowed to die out because of whatever reasons
Multifacetedness
The straitjacket of the syllabus
The focus the syllabus offers
Time
Discipline
The assessment system - flaws and strengths
The nexus of relationships - teachers- parents- management -students and the larger scenario like future demands, staying up to date , innovation, originality, creativity, a healthy balance etc...
Cost efficiency,
technology,
environment friendly,
political incorrectness ...
Rural india
Urban poor
Aditi kids and their purpose.....
Sensitizing and conscientizing them to pay it forward....
Now I hope to finally start on my first draft. Skeleton.
Define education briefly.
Then go onto teaching,facilitating...
Banking theory
Deschooling society
Unstructured learning
Structured learning of various kinds
Acontextual learning
Multiple intelligences and cognitive psychology
When does learning really happen
Constructivism - Anita Rampal's definition
Teaching in india
Teaching in our school, i.e. my teaching practice and the concept of professionalism
The idea that there were alternate schools of thought that were allowed to die out because of whatever reasons
Multifacetedness
The straitjacket of the syllabus
The focus the syllabus offers
Time
Discipline
The assessment system - flaws and strengths
The nexus of relationships - teachers- parents- management -students and the larger scenario like future demands, staying up to date , innovation, originality, creativity, a healthy balance etc...
Cost efficiency,
technology,
environment friendly,
political incorrectness ...
Rural india
Urban poor
Aditi kids and their purpose.....
Sensitizing and conscientizing them to pay it forward....
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Reading done.
I have read all four essays.
They are all worth perusing. But I am sticking to my choice of Anita Rampal's essay on democratizing the teaching of science inthe Indian social context. This is because, as Miss kini says on the discussion board I'm unable to post on as yet, the essay lends itself to other applications as well.
They are all worth perusing. But I am sticking to my choice of Anita Rampal's essay on democratizing the teaching of science inthe Indian social context. This is because, as Miss kini says on the discussion board I'm unable to post on as yet, the essay lends itself to other applications as well.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Essay
Essay = assay to write something on any topic.
I read Anita Rampal's essay. One of her essays. On how to teach science in the Indian context.
What is education?
To instruct through delight is one of the definitions that comes to my mind because of my literary background. But a student actually told me " Be like Hitler, that's the only thing that works with our class." Eye - opening, isn't it? And their need for high grades for admissions to universities is quite amazing because it shows that they are focused in what they want.
I read Anita Rampal's essay. One of her essays. On how to teach science in the Indian context.
What is education?
To instruct through delight is one of the definitions that comes to my mind because of my literary background. But a student actually told me " Be like Hitler, that's the only thing that works with our class." Eye - opening, isn't it? And their need for high grades for admissions to universities is quite amazing because it shows that they are focused in what they want.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Web tools in the use of teaching
SinceShuchi's assignment remains but the link hasn't appeared yet, I thought I'll kick off the discussion here.
Starting by just listing web tools that can be used for teaching.
Email. This includes individual mail, group mail, replying, forwarding and replying to all options. Email also offers attachments facility so text, data and pics of a limited- now expanding since the arrival of Gmail - quantity of bytes can be sent along with it.
Chat messengers = Like Yahoo and MSN.
allows for real time conversations and enables group conversations too. with webcam and mics even video conferencing can be set up on chat messengers.
Chat rooms for specific topics can be set up.
Linking up with others through chat who are also interested in the topic of study is also sometimes possible in the common chat rooms.
Search engines : resource and info etc. data banks.
Blogs
Groups like the ones offered by MSN and Yahoo
Threaded discussion boards.
Radio and TV stations that can be set up by oneself - This is a very exciting option i want to explore.
Websites and webpages like the ones offered for free by Bravenet or Yahoo Geocities.
Software like Powerpoint is not mentioned because I do not consider tham webtools. They are computer tools.
Starting by just listing web tools that can be used for teaching.
Email. This includes individual mail, group mail, replying, forwarding and replying to all options. Email also offers attachments facility so text, data and pics of a limited- now expanding since the arrival of Gmail - quantity of bytes can be sent along with it.
Chat messengers = Like Yahoo and MSN.
allows for real time conversations and enables group conversations too. with webcam and mics even video conferencing can be set up on chat messengers.
Chat rooms for specific topics can be set up.
Linking up with others through chat who are also interested in the topic of study is also sometimes possible in the common chat rooms.
Search engines : resource and info etc. data banks.
Blogs
Groups like the ones offered by MSN and Yahoo
Threaded discussion boards.
Radio and TV stations that can be set up by oneself - This is a very exciting option i want to explore.
Websites and webpages like the ones offered for free by Bravenet or Yahoo Geocities.
Software like Powerpoint is not mentioned because I do not consider tham webtools. They are computer tools.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
I have, together with two students , created my/our first educational blog and it's coming along in a nice way. I don't want to open it to the public but I would like all of you take a look at it an tell me what you think of it. And I can't do that without opening it up to the public :( Any ideas?
By the way Bala's work is stunning. one day I hope my students will come out with written things that have as much power. I mean students here in Aditi.
By the way Bala's work is stunning. one day I hope my students will come out with written things that have as much power. I mean students here in Aditi.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
The next assignment
I want my blog to flow in every direction. I feel that what I wanted to say about the nature of the pedagogy used in Aditi wasn't said well enough by me because I haven't yet reflected deeply enough on it. WhatI want to say can be started this way. About four years ago I started a re-learning process regarding the use of the computer. My colleagues were using blackboard and chalk and handouts of notes that were photostatted. I felt the need update myself on what was happening in the world of technology so that I could think about how to use it in present day education. So I hit the net! It was an electrifying experience. Without being aware of what others around the world were doing I surfed freely and found out the myriad possibilities of the world wide web. Starting from the most commonly used interfaces of communication like email and its variations to really complex possibilities of expression and communication available on the net, I ranged freely around its bourne enjoying everything there. It had a fallout effect in the sense that I suddenly felt a gap between me and my colleagues becasue I wanted to bring in this technology into the classroom and they were petrified by understandable fears like are we too old to learn it , it's just a new-fangled innovation etc. Kerala has good , even excellent, teachers but their methodology is outmoded. I belong to that background. So when I came here to Aditi and Tara Kini's classes went on, my mind exploded with the same re-cognition that had happened to me when I started serious surfing for new ways to transfer information etc.
I realised that a teaching revolution had occurred in the world that I was not part of, that I knew nothing about. At the same time I felt at ease in the new dispensation because the thoughts were all familiar to me as my thoughts on teaching while I had sat alone and thought on these things in Trivandrum. What I had thought of they were already doing and had been doing for years here. The thought was both humbling and exciting. When I started blogging one of the first things that came to me back in TVM was how blogging could help my P.G students and what a pity it was I couldn't make them do it because of financial constraints. So when I came here and got the opportunity to start my own blog it was both self-confirming and exhilarating.
To come to the main point. I am now interested i ntrying to delineate for myself what this system of pedagogy is all about. What is the underlying philosophy? Constructivism? I have started reading Anita Rampal's essay on the Science curriculum and it has a good definition of constructivism in it. Piaget and cognitive psychologists are involved , yes, I know. Modern experiments in pedagogy are implicated too. But what is the structure?
In the next blog I hope to put in Anita Rampal's defintion of constructivism. I am reading the four essays and deciding which one to choose for my next assignment.
I want to write something clear, simple and fresh without compromising on the guidelines given.
Maybe I could start with a definition of education? I think I will use Tagore and Jesus a lot. Not sure. This is good , the mental cogs have started spinning -----
And thanks a lot, all of you for leaving such encouraging comments for me to read on the blog .
I want to acknowledge here that all of you have taught me more than you think and I can hope to give back.
I realised that a teaching revolution had occurred in the world that I was not part of, that I knew nothing about. At the same time I felt at ease in the new dispensation because the thoughts were all familiar to me as my thoughts on teaching while I had sat alone and thought on these things in Trivandrum. What I had thought of they were already doing and had been doing for years here. The thought was both humbling and exciting. When I started blogging one of the first things that came to me back in TVM was how blogging could help my P.G students and what a pity it was I couldn't make them do it because of financial constraints. So when I came here and got the opportunity to start my own blog it was both self-confirming and exhilarating.
To come to the main point. I am now interested i ntrying to delineate for myself what this system of pedagogy is all about. What is the underlying philosophy? Constructivism? I have started reading Anita Rampal's essay on the Science curriculum and it has a good definition of constructivism in it. Piaget and cognitive psychologists are involved , yes, I know. Modern experiments in pedagogy are implicated too. But what is the structure?
In the next blog I hope to put in Anita Rampal's defintion of constructivism. I am reading the four essays and deciding which one to choose for my next assignment.
I want to write something clear, simple and fresh without compromising on the guidelines given.
Maybe I could start with a definition of education? I think I will use Tagore and Jesus a lot. Not sure. This is good , the mental cogs have started spinning -----
And thanks a lot, all of you for leaving such encouraging comments for me to read on the blog .
I want to acknowledge here that all of you have taught me more than you think and I can hope to give back.
Friday, August 26, 2005
I thought I'll reflect a bit on what has happened to me after coming to Aditi. First came the Mapping/ Evolving Professional Practice Course which was a real good orientation programme and helped induct me into the school system and aslo to the idea that we are professionals and need to know about pedagogy. I am learning. as a result of that course, to write tight lesson plans and have aslo learned how to write annual plans and unit plans. I also met wonderful teachers, primarily Tara Kini, Shuchi, Arundhati Raja, my seven "new" colleagues whom I really admire and many others like Nalini, Jyotsna,Satish, Aruna, Suravi, Anjana, Sneha, Vandana, Kalpana - too many to name in fact. I picked up many new techniques like mind mapping procedures, using planners and organisers etc. A video I watched on how to use time in Blocks was really entertaining and instructive. Moving forward into actual practice after that was therefore not so daunting . But I soon found out that theory and practice are two different things. I wanted to go in with the Learning is Fun approach. But my kids soon clipped my wings. They were more into exams and grades!!! I was a bit surprised I must admit. It used to be a little different in my days, if I remember correctly. Our problem with our teachers was that we thought they were too exams and marks centred and never seemed to realise that there were skills and attitudes outside the syllabus that were as relevant as what we were doing "in class." I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. anyway, always! Then came the PPSE course. Its use of web tools and the six hats exercise plus Tara's content-context mindbender and GN's inspirational talk on teaching with its unforgettable diagram , the essays and assignments given to us so far for reading and doing have all made a deep impact on me. Surprisingly the effect has been one of awakening to a fierce sense of competition in me. I find that I want to be the best and get a string of AAAAAA's !!!!!! As a teacher and a student. Facilitator, pedagogue, professional practitioner , educator - whatever word we use - guide, guru, mentor, friend and philosopher - I suddenly feel once again the drive I had when I was a research student. "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield,/ To follow knowledge like a sinking star beyond the uttermost bound of human thought" to echo Tennyson's Ulysses's famous lines. Meanwhile i've also come across a simple fact -teachers out here in Aditi are definitely much better than where I come from ( and that includes me) and I need to be aware of this and learn from them before launching out on finding my own style of teaching as for as education in schools is concerned. I now want to read the essays by Anita Rampal and the other essays given to me by Tara and also read stuff by Gandhi, Krishnamurthy (J.K.), Tagore and also take a look at Paulo Freire and Ivan Illyich. Pedagogy of the Opressed and Deschooling Society are two books I always wanted to read but never got around to. Maybe now I can. I have started on Krishnamurthy's Education and the Significance of Life. It is slow going. But in the end it will be rewarding, I have no doubt about that.
The threaded discussion board was a good experience, as was writng down my timeline. In the company of people with deep, wide and varied experiences like Amarnathan sir, Srinivasan, Maheshwaran , Bala, Raji , Sandra, Gudrun, Geeta, Parbati, Joel, Gulab, Neela, Anu,Vijaya, Uday and indeed all my colleagues who form the 21 who are now taking the PPSE course plus new professional friends I'm making like Beena Babu and Vasu sir etc. - too many names and not enough names !!!! - so don't mind if i didn't mention your name - I am blossoming.
So there is generally a good feel regarding my profession in me these days. Let's see where all this goes. The tough thing is to be simple like Socrates could be in his dialogues and compassionate like Buddha or pure like Jesus in one's relationship with one's students while also being explosive in triggering of learning and interest and potential in them like some post-modern thinkers have made me explode in the realm of literary and critical theory............
The voyage is heady , anyway........... :)
The threaded discussion board was a good experience, as was writng down my timeline. In the company of people with deep, wide and varied experiences like Amarnathan sir, Srinivasan, Maheshwaran , Bala, Raji , Sandra, Gudrun, Geeta, Parbati, Joel, Gulab, Neela, Anu,Vijaya, Uday and indeed all my colleagues who form the 21 who are now taking the PPSE course plus new professional friends I'm making like Beena Babu and Vasu sir etc. - too many names and not enough names !!!! - so don't mind if i didn't mention your name - I am blossoming.
So there is generally a good feel regarding my profession in me these days. Let's see where all this goes. The tough thing is to be simple like Socrates could be in his dialogues and compassionate like Buddha or pure like Jesus in one's relationship with one's students while also being explosive in triggering of learning and interest and potential in them like some post-modern thinkers have made me explode in the realm of literary and critical theory............
The voyage is heady , anyway........... :)
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Snippets
I've fiinished the basic minimum requirement for the assignments.
So taking a break . Time for some lighter moments.
A nice site to visit
Internet Humour:
The Great Game
The environment that nurtures creative programmers kills management and marketing types - and vice versa.
Programming is the Great Game. It consumes you, body and soul. When you're caught up in it, nothing else matters. When you emerge into daylight, you might well discover that you're a hundred pounds overweight, your underwear is older than the average first grader, and judging from the number of pizza boxes lying around, it must be spring already. But you don't care, because your program runs, and the code is fast and clever and tight.
You won.
You're aware that some people think you're a nerd. So what? They're not players. They've never jousted with Windows or gone hand to hand with DOS. To them C++ is a decent grade, almost a B - not a language. They barely exist. Like soldiers or artists, you don't care about the opinions of civilians. You're building something intricate and fine. They'll never understand it.
I think I'm a programmer!!!!!
The picture is from the Lord of the Rings scrapbook , look closely at the background ,you'll love the detailing. (http://img-nex.theonering.net/images/scrapbook/orig/12631_orig.jpg)
Aditi - the present.
So we come to the last phase - Juggling as a metaphor for teaching - personal commitments - school and teaching/learning processes - finding the answer to problems and solutions. Suddenly I am a learner once again.
I find a most interesting development occurring. My learning skills have suddenly blossomed again but it seems to be affecting my teaching skills............ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know it's temporary.
I love this uncertainty. Challenge. How to come out on top of this and every other new challenge that's ever gonna be thrown at me by life as its way of getting me to excel.
The game is for winning. As is the dame:) LOL.
End of timeline exercise. Summing up.
1985- 1993: teaching my friends in college unofficially
1993: teaching as a researcher
1994-1995: teaching in tutorial colleges
1995 - 2005: teaching in a Private, Govt. aided, NAAC accredited college under Kerala Univ.
1995-2005: Teaching as resource person for refresher courses for teachers and also conducting vivas for P.G students, guiding research projects officially and 'unofficially' for P.G. and M.Phil.
To sum up: Contexts are fluid, whichever way you look at it but content in the case of working with prescribed syllabuses is more or less fixed. The battle I'm now into is how to master the new demand of the context of teaching plus two students and high school students in a way palatable to them so that they pass the exam and get good grades etc without compromising on my inner drive to awaken them to see that there is something more to learning than basics like getting through an exam or getting good grades. In brief the content should be how they can be inspired to ask the "right" questions and find creative, original, innovative and deep solutions . And the context: Well , they need to know that there are concentric circles of contexts and each matters in its own way. The teacher has to creat contexts and not just know them.
Colour coding used: blue for theorizing, red for quotes and white for reminiscing.
News: I have started my first educational blog. Wish me luck!!!
I find a most interesting development occurring. My learning skills have suddenly blossomed again but it seems to be affecting my teaching skills............ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know it's temporary.
I love this uncertainty. Challenge. How to come out on top of this and every other new challenge that's ever gonna be thrown at me by life as its way of getting me to excel.
The game is for winning. As is the dame:) LOL.
End of timeline exercise. Summing up.
1985- 1993: teaching my friends in college unofficially
1993: teaching as a researcher
1994-1995: teaching in tutorial colleges
1995 - 2005: teaching in a Private, Govt. aided, NAAC accredited college under Kerala Univ.
1995-2005: Teaching as resource person for refresher courses for teachers and also conducting vivas for P.G students, guiding research projects officially and 'unofficially' for P.G. and M.Phil.
To sum up: Contexts are fluid, whichever way you look at it but content in the case of working with prescribed syllabuses is more or less fixed. The battle I'm now into is how to master the new demand of the context of teaching plus two students and high school students in a way palatable to them so that they pass the exam and get good grades etc without compromising on my inner drive to awaken them to see that there is something more to learning than basics like getting through an exam or getting good grades. In brief the content should be how they can be inspired to ask the "right" questions and find creative, original, innovative and deep solutions . And the context: Well , they need to know that there are concentric circles of contexts and each matters in its own way. The teacher has to creat contexts and not just know them.
Colour coding used: blue for theorizing, red for quotes and white for reminiscing.
News: I have started my first educational blog. Wish me luck!!!
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
The college phase -II
I think I'll use the stream of consciousness technique to write more about it. Or just move on? There, I've already started stream of consciousnessing..... lol..... P.D.C> prepare them to take the exams seriously.... degree classes..... more interesting.... P.G. oh man, I love that game.... invigilation.... correcting answer scripts equals tonnes of paper work in Kerala Univ. ..... attendance, discipline, lack of facilities, finance and infrastructure, genral stagnation of standards, the kids leave, the game goes on and semseterization equals one step forward and three steps sidewards.
assignments, seminars and projects plus internal assessments
a blur a whilrlwind viva voces and finally the realization
I like teaching the p.g. students most. I like teaching Litt rather than General English. Varying my grasp and reach. More and more content. Innovating in methods of teaching. But somehow stagnating. God, am I beginning to hate teaching?
Then two things happened, no, three, that changed everything.
I learned how to use the computer and surf the internet big time. BANG. Something exploded in me. The future is here and now and it includes me.
My son was diagnosed as seemingly autistic.
All my career dreams go up in smoke. Promotion due :)
I begin writing academic stuff again after a long lay off.
Writing poems too.
I need to learn to teach so that I can help my son learn. So I need to learn. LEARN.
My life turned topsy turvy. I had just begun to make it. I was becoming known locally and my articles began appearing and I had definitely taken a step forward because the Kerala university began to call me to be the resource person for their refresher courses.
Teaching teachers.
What a pleasure.
I gave it all up or lost it all. For something better.
Next episode: Aditi and learning/starting from from scratch. Coming soon to this blog near yours.
assignments, seminars and projects plus internal assessments
a blur a whilrlwind viva voces and finally the realization
I like teaching the p.g. students most. I like teaching Litt rather than General English. Varying my grasp and reach. More and more content. Innovating in methods of teaching. But somehow stagnating. God, am I beginning to hate teaching?
Then two things happened, no, three, that changed everything.
I learned how to use the computer and surf the internet big time. BANG. Something exploded in me. The future is here and now and it includes me.
My son was diagnosed as seemingly autistic.
All my career dreams go up in smoke. Promotion due :)
I begin writing academic stuff again after a long lay off.
Writing poems too.
I need to learn to teach so that I can help my son learn. So I need to learn. LEARN.
My life turned topsy turvy. I had just begun to make it. I was becoming known locally and my articles began appearing and I had definitely taken a step forward because the Kerala university began to call me to be the resource person for their refresher courses.
Teaching teachers.
What a pleasure.
I gave it all up or lost it all. For something better.
Next episode: Aditi and learning/starting from from scratch. Coming soon to this blog near yours.
Monday, August 15, 2005
The college phase
Mahesh has defined acontextual learning in his entry as becoming aware of the tremendous possibilty that anything and everything around us - in short, nothing short of everything is useful for and can be used in classroom and teaching practice. All is context. Except content :)
In my official college life, Govt. appointed, I started by teaching General English in Pre-degree, the equivalent of our + 2 ISC , and General English in B.A. and B.Sc. I also taught literature for B.A. and M.A. It was because of my doctoral degree that I was instantly given the chance to teach at not just the Degree level but the Post-graduate level too. I taught John Bunyan and Samuel Beckett the first year to the P.G's. Many of the new teachers in my Dept. had come from my alma mater for my own P.G and research years , so we had a good thing going in terms of rapport in the Department. Some of us tried an experiment which failed but helped all of us in the long run. It was to start a course in trying to prepare the stidents to write the UGC exam so that they could get fellowships to do M.Phil or Ph.D if they wanted to. We had to wind it up after a few months because the students thought our standards too demanding. But it gave us newcomers the push to not slacken in terms of the quality we were used to in the place we had come from. to stick to being at the cutting edge of knowledge in our field, I mean. We loved the tag of specialists!
I would divide my time in the college into three phases
a.When the Pre-Degree was there
b.After they stopped Pre-Degree classes
&
c.Semesterization of P.G. with introduction of seminars, assignments, student projects and internal assessments.
In my official college life, Govt. appointed, I started by teaching General English in Pre-degree, the equivalent of our + 2 ISC , and General English in B.A. and B.Sc. I also taught literature for B.A. and M.A. It was because of my doctoral degree that I was instantly given the chance to teach at not just the Degree level but the Post-graduate level too. I taught John Bunyan and Samuel Beckett the first year to the P.G's. Many of the new teachers in my Dept. had come from my alma mater for my own P.G and research years , so we had a good thing going in terms of rapport in the Department. Some of us tried an experiment which failed but helped all of us in the long run. It was to start a course in trying to prepare the stidents to write the UGC exam so that they could get fellowships to do M.Phil or Ph.D if they wanted to. We had to wind it up after a few months because the students thought our standards too demanding. But it gave us newcomers the push to not slacken in terms of the quality we were used to in the place we had come from. to stick to being at the cutting edge of knowledge in our field, I mean. We loved the tag of specialists!
I would divide my time in the college into three phases
a.When the Pre-Degree was there
b.After they stopped Pre-Degree classes
&
c.Semesterization of P.G. with introduction of seminars, assignments, student projects and internal assessments.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Continuing the timeline of my teaching career
The first three phases I spoke of dealt with a span of time that started , say, in eighth , ninth and tenth standards when I began participating in combined study sessions and ended in 1995 with my last job which lasted only a month or so in another parallel college , called Our College, before I moved on/in to the official space of a Govt.appointed University junior lecturer in a private-Govt.aided UGC approved, NAAC accredited Catholic-run college in Kerala.
I had finshed my research and even as I kept teaching in Arts College for Women I was applying for official jobs. I went for a series of interviews. My results hadn't come out so I was not yet an official Ph.D holder. The moment my viva got over in Madras/Chennai, conducted by one of my thesis-examiners who was now living a retired life as a Professor Emeritus I knew change was coming. I finally got through the first interview I attended after getting my degree officially, in Fatima Mata National College, Quilon. When I got the news I quit my job in Alwaye and went back home to Trivandrum. The job would start in June and it was just March. So in the interim period I taught briefly in Our College,Trivandrum. The class was thatched!The students who came there were those who had failed in the pre-degree exams and the degree exams in the first attempt. Failure had given them a sad look and they were humble and broken. They were also eager to learn. What they wanted was notes. lots of it. I felt sorry for them and wondered why the education system produced so many failures. When I moved out from there after doing my usual stuff of reading texts line by line and annotating it etc. and giving them cyclostyled notes that were given to me free by the tutorial college that weren't of very good standard I noted half humorously and half wryly that my literary guru Nakulan, a great Tamil modernist writer, was indeed right when he wrote this poem:
What is English Literature?
Annotations
Essays
And short questions.
This timeline is personal and also connected to content and context.
In post-modernism , the words content and context are problematised. Context is considered equal or more important than content. The two are separable, inseparable , one and need to be theorised upon. For instance, every lesson has not context but contexts. The jargon includes two other relevant words, frame and background. If content is text , in literary theory, inter-disciplinarity asks what is foregrounded , using the language of painting and structuralism and also what the frame is using the language of art (and; my aside: detective language?!) .The point is there are too many contexts and frames and backgrounds around which text, picture or content can be read,drawn, hung, contoured....
In teaching, for instance, in the four examples I already gave I portrayed four different contexts and I could multiply them indefinitely. The contexts were students teaching, researcher teaching, teaching girls and teaching "failures". That is a very simplistic way of putting it.
Plurality of contexts is inescapable and alters the content into a multi-pronged thing.
How does this reflect on teaching practice? Shall we fall into one of the two extremes of post-modernism which says there is no context(s) or traditional teaching which posits only content. Or is there a third and even a fourth possiblilty. Mahesh's a-contextual learning comes to mind. So too do modern and ancient experiments in pedagogy where the contexts were decidee by various factors and allowed for multiplicity in a limited way so that the educational system wouldn't slip over into anarchy.
I need to give examples. In theIndian context, the post-modern kind of education would be the one enjoyed by intelligent dropouts who come from well to do families. The traditional kind is seen all around in ordinary schools and colleges. Content is all important there. In a school like Rishi Valley or in an experimental university like Vishwa Bharathi that is trying to incorporate modern/ancient Indian methods of pedagogy the contexts are often limited to national,local,regional although this involves a certain amount of broadening to multiple "contexts" without putting too much pressure on the system so that it won't collapse from the burden of one too many contexts.
Schools like MAIS work on a different orientation , because it brings in the international context and foregrounds it above the local and regional contexts, placing it on the same footing as the national context.
The teacher-facilitator who is a cog in all these machines has to reflect on how these shifting contexts impinge on his work. The main thing could be summed up in one or two words : nowadays, he has to be adaptible, highly versatile and flexible - to survive successfully in such environments , especially since technology has come in with an information highway that almost makes him obsolete with the amount of facts it provides. Should we perpetuate the myth that learning is not possible without gurus? Or find alternatives, the things we can now do in the new situation.
As for a-contextual learning I have lots to say about it and I will in one of my next posts.
We live in exciting days as far as teaching as professional practice is concerned.
I had finshed my research and even as I kept teaching in Arts College for Women I was applying for official jobs. I went for a series of interviews. My results hadn't come out so I was not yet an official Ph.D holder. The moment my viva got over in Madras/Chennai, conducted by one of my thesis-examiners who was now living a retired life as a Professor Emeritus I knew change was coming. I finally got through the first interview I attended after getting my degree officially, in Fatima Mata National College, Quilon. When I got the news I quit my job in Alwaye and went back home to Trivandrum. The job would start in June and it was just March. So in the interim period I taught briefly in Our College,Trivandrum. The class was thatched!The students who came there were those who had failed in the pre-degree exams and the degree exams in the first attempt. Failure had given them a sad look and they were humble and broken. They were also eager to learn. What they wanted was notes. lots of it. I felt sorry for them and wondered why the education system produced so many failures. When I moved out from there after doing my usual stuff of reading texts line by line and annotating it etc. and giving them cyclostyled notes that were given to me free by the tutorial college that weren't of very good standard I noted half humorously and half wryly that my literary guru Nakulan, a great Tamil modernist writer, was indeed right when he wrote this poem:
What is English Literature?
Annotations
Essays
And short questions.
This timeline is personal and also connected to content and context.
In post-modernism , the words content and context are problematised. Context is considered equal or more important than content. The two are separable, inseparable , one and need to be theorised upon. For instance, every lesson has not context but contexts. The jargon includes two other relevant words, frame and background. If content is text , in literary theory, inter-disciplinarity asks what is foregrounded , using the language of painting and structuralism and also what the frame is using the language of art (and; my aside: detective language?!) .The point is there are too many contexts and frames and backgrounds around which text, picture or content can be read,drawn, hung, contoured....
In teaching, for instance, in the four examples I already gave I portrayed four different contexts and I could multiply them indefinitely. The contexts were students teaching, researcher teaching, teaching girls and teaching "failures". That is a very simplistic way of putting it.
Plurality of contexts is inescapable and alters the content into a multi-pronged thing.
How does this reflect on teaching practice? Shall we fall into one of the two extremes of post-modernism which says there is no context(s) or traditional teaching which posits only content. Or is there a third and even a fourth possiblilty. Mahesh's a-contextual learning comes to mind. So too do modern and ancient experiments in pedagogy where the contexts were decidee by various factors and allowed for multiplicity in a limited way so that the educational system wouldn't slip over into anarchy.
I need to give examples. In theIndian context, the post-modern kind of education would be the one enjoyed by intelligent dropouts who come from well to do families. The traditional kind is seen all around in ordinary schools and colleges. Content is all important there. In a school like Rishi Valley or in an experimental university like Vishwa Bharathi that is trying to incorporate modern/ancient Indian methods of pedagogy the contexts are often limited to national,local,regional although this involves a certain amount of broadening to multiple "contexts" without putting too much pressure on the system so that it won't collapse from the burden of one too many contexts.
Schools like MAIS work on a different orientation , because it brings in the international context and foregrounds it above the local and regional contexts, placing it on the same footing as the national context.
The teacher-facilitator who is a cog in all these machines has to reflect on how these shifting contexts impinge on his work. The main thing could be summed up in one or two words : nowadays, he has to be adaptible, highly versatile and flexible - to survive successfully in such environments , especially since technology has come in with an information highway that almost makes him obsolete with the amount of facts it provides. Should we perpetuate the myth that learning is not possible without gurus? Or find alternatives, the things we can now do in the new situation.
As for a-contextual learning I have lots to say about it and I will in one of my next posts.
We live in exciting days as far as teaching as professional practice is concerned.
Time lines.....what?!!
First timeline.....
What happened in the second half of the PPSE course -
We analysed Krishna Kumar's article. We started on the threaded discussion boards
We discussed future assignments. Worked on the second day on our assignment of how to contextualise content that slips away from content and it was an awesome team effort by Bala, Anitha, Raji, Hema and yours truly. We got an A. Yay!!!!
Timeline of teaching-learning practice , as an amateur and professional.
My first amteurish attempt at teaching was explaining to friends the meanings of poems, because of my feel for Literature. We used to call it combined or group study, not "collaborative learning," in those days.
My first interesting teaching assignment was at the Institute of English, Keral Univ., while I was doing my research on Samuel Beckett. I had to teach Waiting for Godot to the post-graduates at the behest of my guide who also happened to be the HOD. It went off well ,to my pleasant surprise! I was teaching my juniors!!!
Then I taught for eleven months in Arts College for Women , Alwaye, a private tutorial(parallel) college. I had to teach general English in pre-degree classes and English literature and language in B.A. and M.A. classes. The context was interesting. My students insisted on speaking Malayalam with a kind of rustic and beautiful twang to it. Many were from the middle, lower middle and poorer classes in terms of economics. Quite a few were Muslims and came to class veiled and sometimes in black. They were all girls., of course :)
Their knowledge of English was suspect.
I had to read texts to them line by line, annotate everything, write the notes myself and make them copy it out by hand as I dictated it in class.
This kind of work ensured I knew the text well, but they "mugged up "everything. They were very respectful and loving but in class they had to be kept totally in control. A must was that they had to somehow pass. Institutions like that depend on results because the next batches come around based on advertisements or word of mouth or hearsay and failure meant closure of the institution. But , in spite of whatever drawbacks were there, I enjoyed my work thoroughly and became very popular with "my" girls. Most of them passed and some of them went on to B.Ed and should be even teaching now. One of them, a very sincere girl called Sindhu, who liked me a lot and did her work with all her heart got in as a teacher there after I left. That, I felt, was a feather in my cap.
At the time I knew nothing about pedagogy, except self-taught thumb rules. I couldn't use my "heavy" knowledge in a place like that but had to keep it simple. That was the main rule , keep it simple, discipline be maintained , content be made clear and keeping the context in mind teach from the exam point of view and encourage rote learning after analysing the question papers for them and trying to predict which questions would come :).
Though I was paid what by my present standards is a pittance , needless to say I was happy in my first teaching job. It was the satisfaction I got from seeing these girls coming from slightly backward areas and backgrounds become interested in studying and literature and beginning to read and write in English somewhat fluently that made me quite happy. Their love and humility also touched me deeply. Even the ones who perhaps failed were not likely to blame the teacher, in places like that. Yes, all in all I still treasure that time lots. Can't measure it's value, it was a very significant time and made a big contribution to me inside.
What happened in the second half of the PPSE course -
We analysed Krishna Kumar's article. We started on the threaded discussion boards
We discussed future assignments. Worked on the second day on our assignment of how to contextualise content that slips away from content and it was an awesome team effort by Bala, Anitha, Raji, Hema and yours truly. We got an A. Yay!!!!
Timeline of teaching-learning practice , as an amateur and professional.
My first amteurish attempt at teaching was explaining to friends the meanings of poems, because of my feel for Literature. We used to call it combined or group study, not "collaborative learning," in those days.
My first interesting teaching assignment was at the Institute of English, Keral Univ., while I was doing my research on Samuel Beckett. I had to teach Waiting for Godot to the post-graduates at the behest of my guide who also happened to be the HOD. It went off well ,to my pleasant surprise! I was teaching my juniors!!!
Then I taught for eleven months in Arts College for Women , Alwaye, a private tutorial(parallel) college. I had to teach general English in pre-degree classes and English literature and language in B.A. and M.A. classes. The context was interesting. My students insisted on speaking Malayalam with a kind of rustic and beautiful twang to it. Many were from the middle, lower middle and poorer classes in terms of economics. Quite a few were Muslims and came to class veiled and sometimes in black. They were all girls., of course :)
Their knowledge of English was suspect.
I had to read texts to them line by line, annotate everything, write the notes myself and make them copy it out by hand as I dictated it in class.
This kind of work ensured I knew the text well, but they "mugged up "everything. They were very respectful and loving but in class they had to be kept totally in control. A must was that they had to somehow pass. Institutions like that depend on results because the next batches come around based on advertisements or word of mouth or hearsay and failure meant closure of the institution. But , in spite of whatever drawbacks were there, I enjoyed my work thoroughly and became very popular with "my" girls. Most of them passed and some of them went on to B.Ed and should be even teaching now. One of them, a very sincere girl called Sindhu, who liked me a lot and did her work with all her heart got in as a teacher there after I left. That, I felt, was a feather in my cap.
At the time I knew nothing about pedagogy, except self-taught thumb rules. I couldn't use my "heavy" knowledge in a place like that but had to keep it simple. That was the main rule , keep it simple, discipline be maintained , content be made clear and keeping the context in mind teach from the exam point of view and encourage rote learning after analysing the question papers for them and trying to predict which questions would come :).
Though I was paid what by my present standards is a pittance , needless to say I was happy in my first teaching job. It was the satisfaction I got from seeing these girls coming from slightly backward areas and backgrounds become interested in studying and literature and beginning to read and write in English somewhat fluently that made me quite happy. Their love and humility also touched me deeply. Even the ones who perhaps failed were not likely to blame the teacher, in places like that. Yes, all in all I still treasure that time lots. Can't measure it's value, it was a very significant time and made a big contribution to me inside.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments